Automatically set ticket priorities and due dates with Ticket Rules

Introduction

There's no way to automatically allow users to set priority when using a custom form in the portal, so the below goes through how to create Ticket Rules to change the ticket priority and/or due date based on user input.

Steps
(5 total)

1

Add a Priority category

Navigate to Settings > Advanced & International Options. (If you have a scan running, first go to Network Scan and hit Stop, as you can't adjust categories during a scan.)

Add a new category of type List. Under "Default Value," list out all your available priorities in a comma separated list. In the "Applies To" column choose Ticket, and check the "In Portal?" checkbox. Click the Save button when done.

Open "Ticket Rules" dialog

If you choose to, you can create separate modules for each type of rules you create. I personally find it easier to have everything broken out as we have a lot of different rules.

To create a new content category, click the Add button at the bottom-left of the Ticket Rules dialog. From the Content Type drop-down choose Ticket Rules, and give the new category a name.

3

Add rules to adjust ticket priorities

Click the "Add Rule" button at the bottom of the dialog. (If you created a new content category, there will be one rule already in the new module.)

Toggle the checkboxes to determine when the rule will be run. Make sure the "Enabled" checkbox is ticked or the rule will not run.

Set a name for your ticket in Note, then add in your rules and commands. Shown in this example are our priority low and minor rules. If a user picks the value Low from the Importance drop-down, Spiceworks will change the ticket priority to "low" and set the due date as 7 days from now.

If the user picks "Minor" from our Importance list, the ticket will be set to low priority with no due date.

When you are done editing your rules, click on Save at the bottom right of the dialog.

4

Note about rules with multiple criteria

If you have multiple criteria in your rule and all of them need to be true to apply the commands, make sure to select "all" from the Match drop-down. If you leave this as "any," then the command will apply if any one line is true.

In the attached example, in order for this rule to execute the ticket category must be New User Request AND User Hired By must be Charter.

5

Add your category to your portal

Now that you've got your rules set up, you can add your new category to your user portal. Navigate to your portal and open up Edit mode.

Along the left, hover over Attribute and click on the Importance category you just set up. Move your new field wherever you would like to on your form.

Once it's in place, select the priority you would like to be default. For us, it's "Normal." Then click the Save button at the bottom of your form.

Conclusion

These priorities will automatically be assigned only at ticket creation. If you change the value of your custom Importance category after the ticket is created, it will not run these rules.

The above is a fairly easy way to allow users to choose their own priorities for tickets. It also allows the helpdesk administrators to automatically categorize and set due dates on tickets based on the urgency.

Very Helpful how to, I was looking for help on adding Priority Field to the user portal. I was aware I could create rules and this article lays it out nicely. Pity we can't just add the Priority Field. However, the rules option allows auto setting of due date.

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